Join the Discussion

"Would you eat bream that had been feeding on maggots?" Ronnie

Related Resources • Bream Bedding Memories  • Bream are Bedding • Bream Are For Everyone • Bream on the Net

Past Articles One Year Ago -   06/05/00 - Growing Up Fishing A Branch Two Years Ago -  06/07/99 - Bream Are For Everyone Three Years Ago - 06/01/98 - National Fishing Week Four Years Ago - 06/02/97 - More Aquarium Watching to Learn

While growing up some of the older fishermen I hung around with told me about a great method of baiting up bream and making them grow fast. I thought they might be kidding because it sounded kind of gross, and never tried it.

Their method was to get a horse or cow head from one that had been slaughtered or killed accidentally and nail it to a tree hanging over a pond. Flies would lay their eggs in the decaying meat and maggots would grow. As they moved around, some would constantly fall out and into the water, offering bream a steady stream of high-protein food.

They told me you could bait up with just about anything you wanted to use and drop your hook into the water where the maggots fell in and catch a bunch of fat bream anytime you wanted them. It was fairly easy to find dead horses and cows back in those days so your source of bait was always around.

I never thought much about this method until last month. After my geese disappeared, I suspected a big snapping turtle I had seen in the pond had gotten them. I put out some hooks in my pond and caught one the first night. It was 24 inches long from tip of tail to nose and weighed 8 pounds.

It was laying on the bank and the next day I noticed all the flies around it, which brought back memories of the bream baiting method. I nailed a milk crate to a log sticking out over the water and put the dead turtle in it. Within two days bream were working under the crate, hanging around waiting on food to drop out.

After the last of the turtle disappeared I put a shovel in my truck and watched the roadside. On the way out to my pond I saw my quarry - a roadkill raccoon. I scooped it up and took it with me and placed it in the milk crate, and it is now providing food for the bream.

I am planning a big fish fry in a few weeks. Anybody want to join me for fried bream?

Check out Coming Next Week - Next week's column topic, contest prize and new additions to the resources lists.

Previous Features